Wayback. Valdez Oil Spill Was 35 Years Ago On March 24th

The Valdez Oil Spill: 

Valdez Harbor (Journal Archives) 

The Sparkling Waters Of Valdez Were Sullied With "Black Gold" On March 24th, 1989  

When the Valdez Oil Spill occurred in March, 1989, the Copper River Country Journal was only three years old. It was Good Friday. The spill, which occurred in the waters and harbor that had brought the first gold miners to Valdez and then over the glaciers into the Copper Valley in 1898, catapulted the town onto the national scene. Overnight, news organizations from around the world began to arrive to cover the event. And the oft-used phrase "pristine Prince William Sound" began to recede into an idyllic and fantastic memory of a time which many thought could never be recovered.

Vial Of Exxon Valdez Crude Oil, 35 Years After Purchase At A Streetside Tent in Downtown Valdez During The Oil Spill. It Bears The Official State-Sanctioned "Made In Alaska" Logo on Its Cap. (Country Journal) 

The town was too small to handle the sudden huge surge of outsiders. People rented out their living rooms to reporters to sleep in. At Mike's Pizza in downtown Valdez, suddenly – after a long and slow winter – pizza was in huge demand. Cardboard boxes of cooked pizza were piled high near the front desk, waiting for pickup. 

Reporters, camera crews, authorities, and would-be workers began to crowd into the tiny city. They milled around. They interviewed each other. They crowded into the single hotel with the single fax machine and waited in line to use it. The technology was still primitive. They took turns sending out their newsfeeds over the air, patiently standing in line for hours to get a chance to report to the outside world, which was waiting for news in rapt attention. 

It was the second time that Good Friday had decimated the town of Valdez. The first time was in 1964, when the Good Friday Quake struck the community with a vengeance. 

The Copper River Country Journal was in Valdez two days before the Oil Spill and then returned a day later to find that everything had changed.

The Journal Reports On The Spill: